HOT Updates:

TAKING BACK AMERICA!

Friday, August 05, 2005

The U.S added 207,000 jobs in July, bringing the national unemployment rate to 5% - among the lowest in the world. Wasn't it just last year that liberals were trying to scare the American people that the economy was going downhill fast under the Bush administration? And that the tax cuts many low and middle income families received were really for the rich and we were all doomed? Stocks are at record highs as well. Don't like the gas prices? Get an electric moped!Most of us know mainstream Islam is not the enemy - but the thugs that wrap themselves with a Muslim cloth. Prime Minister Tony Blair has announced new measures to deport and exclude from the UK those advocating violence. Their government also plans to draw up a list of extremist web sites, book shops and organizations that promote the extremists. Gee - what a novel idea - stop the proliferation of murder advocates. Don't think the thug-promoters and defenders of the Hate America campaign (ACLU) will let that happen here without a fight. Other countries have targeted radical imams for expulsion:

France deported an imam to his native Algeria on Friday for incendiary sermons at mosques in Paris, and at least eight more extremist clerics are expected to be banished in the coming weeks.

The Dutch justice minister proposed legislation last week that would make praising terrorism a punishable offense and would strip imams and others of their credentials to work, if convicted.

Austria recently passed a law authorizing the expulsion of preachers whose sermons are "a danger to public security."

Last week Sheik Mohammered Ali Hasan al-Moayad (nicknamed DaehTihs) was sentenced to 75 years for plotting to aid al-Qaida and Hamas. Personally, I think he got off easy - I'd had him executed. Of course he tried to prey on the compassion of Americans by offsetting his evil with his account of his charitable works in Yemen and the fact he is ill - too bad fella. Don't do the crime if ya can't do the time!

It looks like Europe has finally awakened from their pc-induced slumber to the threat of islamofacism. I certainly hope America will do the same, although we still have the ACLU to contend with. Of course, I did read an uplifting article on World Net Daily wherein Congress is calling for a probe into the ACLU's widespread frivolous lawsuits. Hooray! Now, if only a congressman would call for the ACLU to be tried under RICO statutes.

Gosh, you're certainly right! The economy is going great...IF one chooses to view the issue in its most superficial sense. IF, on the other hand, one cares to scratch below the surface, then the picture doesn't look so rosy. It all depends on whether or not someone wants to see the truth or merely settle for conservative propaganda.

"I have a friend who has been looking for an apartment. She's in her early 30s, has a young son and works in the service industry at a job that relies on tips to make ends meet. She lives with her parents -- but not out of choice. It's because the cost of housing in our area is well beyond her reach.

And she's not alone.

According to a recent study by the Legal Services of New Jersey's Poverty Research Institute titled "The Real Cost of Living in 2005: The Self-Sufficiency Standard for New Jersey," the average adult with two kids has to earn $17.70 per hour or $37,374 a year to be considered self-sufficient in the state.

According to PRI, the self-sufficiency standard is a better model -- which would be $16,090 -- by which to gauge the actual cost of living in a given area. Unlike the federal poverty line, which is calculated nationally based on the cost of food and takes into account nothing else, the self-sufficiency standard attempts to calculate what families need to earn to pay for food, housing, healthcare, childcare, transportation, clothing and the normal incidentals that most of us take for granted.

The figures vary from region to region, depending on the cost of various services. In Indianapolis, for instance, a family of three would need to earn $16.25 an hour -- or $33,800 a year -- to be self-sufficient, while in Milwaukee the cost balloons to $20.08 an hour or $41,766 a year.

In Middlesex County, N.J., where I live, the PRI calculates self-sufficiency for a family of three at $45,309, while a family of four would need to earn a little more than $50,000, with the figures rising for larger families with older children."

and

"Think about it. A single wage-earner making the federal minimum wage earns $206 a week, clearing maybe $175. Two minimum-wage-earners would clear about $350 a week, or just $1,400 a month to cover everything. In New Jersey, the wage will be boosted to $7.15 over the next two years, but even at that wage the prospects can look pretty bleak. Two wage-earners would probably clear just over $480 a week, or $1,920 a month, in a region where it's difficult to find decent housing for less than $1,000 a month...

Peter Wise, a friend who runs the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, puts it bluntly.

"On first thought, this is a great program," he told a reporter at my paper (The Cranbury Press) in December. "But on second consideration: Why is it that in 2004, in the capital city of the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country in the world, someone who is working a full-time job has to eat at a soup kitchen?"

According to FOX NEWS the new jobs are primarily service and IT, and manufacturing is still down. Between automated systems and companies that are moving out of the country thanks to NAFTA and now CAFTA, pretty soon there will be no work left here in America except for bankers, stockbrokers, and computer geeks. There will be the socially secure, and then the rest of us. There will be no middle class. Thanks to our president who signed into law CAFTA, backed up by our noble Congress, we can see more American money go further south than Mexico. Everything is going to move to Central America, and pump more money into economies run by corrupt governments tied to drug cartels and terrorism. It was no coincidence that the favored guest of Bush at the Ranch during the same time he signed the bill was the president of Venezuela---another oil-rich country that also exports crime, drugs, and cartels. There is a message to be sent to the American public here. This president, and this Congress, really, have turned their backs on the constitution. They are ignoring the border problems with Mexico and doing as much as possible to make it easy and profitable for American business to enrich and improve the lives of those who violate the law to come here, export drugs here, form gangs here, and provide medical care and schooling to their offspring. Our constitution states in the preamble that it was formed, in part, to ensure the general welfare. This president and this congress are ensuring the general welfare of everybody south of the border. This government is not only responsible for the "dumbing down" of American education, it is working on the "pooring down" of the middle class so that only the rich and favored, in league with an increasingly corrupt government, will rule over America. The next thing to hit the block will be SAFTA--the South American Free Trade Agreement.

I'm not going to argue economics - I have to assume the profession indicators and publications like the Wall Street Journal know what they are talking about. It is impossible for 100% of people to be 100% satisfied - that's life. So now on to your example:

a friend in her early 30's and still living with the parents - how pathetic is that? Sponging off your parents at that age. I'd have to ask why she had a child if she can't even afford to take care of herself! Am I heartless? No - just being real. People that can't afford children should not be pumping out children. Also, I'd bet she didn't bother to get any kind of professional training and that's why she's in a low paying job - again, her choice.

Still think the picture is rosy? - YES, very much so. In all your other points you try to make you mention families. Again, why are people pumping out children if they can't afford them? Why don't they get some training that they can earn a better wage, then have their families? You quoted all sorts of social sources but you didn't quote a single reputable financial source!

Pundit - CAFTA and NAFTA and all those agreements doesn't lower our unemployment. Labor unions cried that NAFTA was going to destroy the economy - yet didn't. The facts remain the same - higher wages go to those that have higher qualifications. The equation is rather simple.

I'm not going to argue economics - I have to assume the profession indicators and publications like the Wall Street Journal know what they are talking about.

With that kind of attitude, you should then take whatever they write in The New York Times or The Washington Post as authoritative sources for political news. Both are just as old (if not older) and as preiminent as the WSJ.

how pathetic is that? Sponging off your parents at that age. I'd have to ask why she had a child if she can't even afford to take care of herself!

How compassionate of you! You know NOTHING about this woman, yet you feel free to pass judgement on her. Maybe she just went through a divorce. Maybe her husband recently was killed serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Maybe she has a child because she was raped. There are a multitude of reasons why she is a single mother raising a child, 90% of which a person like you might not ever consider!

I'd bet she didn't bother to get any kind of professional training and that's why she's in a low paying job - again, her choice.

This is such a simplistic argument that doesn't even dovetail with fact. As Pundit correctly pointed out, most of the good jobs (save for a FEW sectors) are going overseas. The jobs that are being added are those jobs that require little education and less skills (service jobs). There are loads of people across this nation with advanced degrees, additional education/training and quality work experience who are working at McDonald's, Walmart and Holiday Inn because they can't find quality jobs.

Consequently, even if this woman were to take your advice, it STILL might not make a wit of difference. Then what kind of "I know better than you" advice will you proffer?